Solistin

Margarita Gritskova

Margarita Gritskova was born in Saint Petersburg and studied piano and voice with Irina Bogatscheva at the State Conservatory of her hometown. A formative experience during her studies was her performance as Carmen under the baton of Mariss Jansons. The young singer has won prizes at competitions such as the Luciano Pavarotti Competition in Modena in 2008 and the Concurso Internacional de Canto Villa de Colmenar in Spain in 2009. After completing her studies, Margarita Gritskova was engaged at the National Theatre in Weimar, where she was able to build the foundation of her large repertoire with roles such as Ottone (»L’incoronazione di Poppea«), Bradamante (»Alcina«), Cherubino (»Le nozze di Figaro«) and the title role in Carmen. 

Since 2012 she has been a member of the ensemble at the Vienna State Opera. Here she has sung roles such as Cherubino, Idamante (»Idomeneo«), Sesto (»La clemenza di Tito«), Dorabella (»Così fan tutte«), Rosina (»Il barbiere di Siviglia«), Angelina (»La Cenerentola«), Isabella (»L’italiana in Algeri«), Olga (»Eugen Onegin«), Prince Orlofsky (»Die Fledermaus«), Krista in the new production of »The Makropulos Affair« staged by Peter Stein, Bradamante or Smeton (»Anna Bolena«). A very special experience was her role debut as Mascha in the new production of Peter Eötvös’ opera »Tri sestri« staged by Yuval Sharon. After that Peter Eötvös dedicated the song »Bitterkeit« to her, based on a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva. With her performance at the Vienna Opera Ball in February 2014, Margarita Gritskova caught the attention of an even larger international audience thanks to the worldwide television broadcast.

Guest appearances have taken her to leading opera houses such as the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, the Staatsoper Hamburg, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Opera Cologne, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Zurich Opera House, the operas in Oslo and Valencia, the Opéra de Québec and to festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, Festivale de Opera in Tenerifa, the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. In 2018 Margarita Gritskova was honored as the best mezzo-soprano of the opera season 2017/2018 at the »Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía« in Valencia.

Highlights of her young career include concerts with José Carreras in Vienna, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Innsbruck, Oviedo, Covent Garden in London and Carnegie Hall in New York. Kammersängerin Nelly Lee sparked Margerita Gritskovas’s love for chamber music, to which she has devoted special attention ever since. In 2014 she made her debut with Thomas Lausmann at the piano in a recital at the Vienna Musikverein. Further recitals took her to the Rossini Festival in Bad Wildbad in 2015 with pianist Eduard Kiprsky and to the Rossini Festival in Pesaro in 2017 with young pianist and conductor Ivan Demidov. In 2017 she gave recitals with pianist Maria Prinz in Sofia (Bulgaria) and at the Russian Cultural Centre in Vienna. Based on this program the CD recording »Russian Songs« with works by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov was recorded in February 2018 and released by Naxos in March 2019. Two further recordings for Naxos with songs by Prokofiev and Shostakovich are scheduled in 2019.